‘Each time I read one of her books, I wanted to read more’: five actors on bringing Annie Ernaux’s memoir to the stage

The cast of The Years photographed for the Observer New Review (l-r): Deborah Findlay, Anjli Mohindra, Romola Garai, Gina McKee and Harmony Rose-Bremner. Photograph: Phil Fisk/the Observer

Annie Ernaux was 61 years old when, “one September morning” in 2001, two planes crashed into New York’s twin towers. “Our image of the world was turned upside down,” she wrote in her powerful collective autobiography The Years. “We saw the right was advancing everywhere. We turned away. We focused on ourselves again… we were mutating. We didn’t know what our new shape would be.”

For the actor Anjli Mohindra, the event evokes a more personal mutation. She had just turned 11 and started at secondary school. Her first period had begun the previous day. “I’d forgotten about it until we started rehearsing,” she says, but the memory swam back into her mind because, as well as dealing with world events, Ernaux is fascinated by the evolution of her own body. “I don’t want to say she’s obsessed, but she thinks a lot about her menstrual cycle and her menopause and things like that.”